Word of Mouth
blog | philmckinney | May 22, 2006 at 8:19 amWord of mouth is a powerful way to “spread the word”. In a recent article that was posted on the Customer Evangelists Blog. The numbers say it all ….
- 56: The average number of times an American discusses brands in ordinary conversations every week.
- 72%: The percentage of brand-related opinions delivered from a person to a family member or personal friend; 13% are delivered to co-workers and 7% are delivered by a professional or expert on the topic. (I suppose that puts us marketing bloggers in the distinct minority.)
- 41%: Number of conversations about brands that reference an item seen or heard in the media or in marketing material; 15% refer to an ad, 8% refer to a form of editorial or entertainment content, 5% refer to a point of purchase item, and 4% refer to the lowly coupon or other promotion.
- 62%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly positive.”
- 9%: Percentage of marketing-related discussions described as “mostly negative.”
- 92%: Percentage of word of mouth conversations that occur offline; 71% of those occur face-to-face, and 21% occur by phone.
The numbers are courtesy of a new study (PDF) from the Keller Fay Group.
It’s pretty clear that most word of mouth occurs primarily while we’re not sitting in front of computer screens.
For more info …
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Agreed that the majority of word of mouth occurs…well…by mouth.
Maybe that seems self evident. However, are there weak signals in environmants like “Second life”, where “discussions” take on a virtual form? I don’t know a lot about it, but as I understand this isn’t the same as chat, where you have to be invited or be on a list. In environments like second life you can happen across “conversations” and listen, participate, etc. There are gatherings where people with common interests show up (virtually of course) and “talk”. Sounds like a combination of the open environment of forums, message boards, etc and the real time elements of chat, VOIP, web conferencing, and maybe a few more for good measure.
How much will personal interaction in the virtual world impact marketing and branding in the future? I think it will have a large impact.
I agree. We still look for that personal recommendation to make us comfortable with a purchase. We all have that need for validation.
The question is what is influencing that person’s recommendations we trust?